Yearly Archives: 2017

Stranger Things 2, S2 E2, Trick or Treat, Freak; ALT Title: Halfway Happy

Posted on by casewright

ST2

Happy Halloween!!! Stranger Things 2 is in full-swing, but with some new twists like  characters behaving stupidly out of character to move the plot forward.

The episode begins with El saying, “Goodbye Mike.” *sniff*  BUT, she didn’t die after killing the Demimooregorgan! Instead of dying, she went into the Upside Down, escaped, and became feral in the Indiana woods living off squirrels and mugging hunters for their coats.  Really.  So, Yay?

Present day, she’s living with Hop who protects her by raising her in isolation.  She wants to go Trick or Treating.  Hop refuses.  Instead he offers a compromise: he’ll get home early, they’ll eat candy, and watch a movie.  Hop calls this a compromise – Halfway Happy.  With the phrase Halfway Happy, Hop encapsulates the theme of his life, her life, and our experience as viewers: Halfway Happy.

Hop is halfway happy because he gets to be a dad again- Kinda.

El is halfway happy because she doesn’t have to live as a feral monster in the woods, but is isolated from any normal life.

Mike and the boys are halfway happy because they are safe – for now.

We are halfway happy because it’s season 2 and I’m reviewing again!

Here comes the stupid:

Joyce and Hop review Will’s spider beast drawing and are convinced that it’s all in head.  WHY?!  They’ve been to the upside down.  They’ve seen monsters! Why are they incredulous?!  WHY?!

We learn that Madmax’s brother is likely wanted and an asshole.  But, I gotta write- his mullet is EPIC! Points for that!

Hop investigates more rotting pumpkins and loses track of time and misses eating candy with El.  He doesn’t believe Will’s new big bad drawings, but show him some gooey trees and he’s all in baby! I wish there were more to that subplot, but there just wasn’t.

Young Judah Friedlander is really dumb this season.  Did he get a TBI?!  He doesn’t know what words mean like presumptuous and rescues an unidentified whatever (baby demimooregorgan from his trash).  WHY?! He is somewhat popular with Madmax- good on him for that.

We learn that El has honed her skills to go into the black room by using a blindfold and thinking really hard.  Good on her for that.

Will emotes with the same face again this episode as he is harassed and put into the upside down with a shadow monster.  Also, a disappointment because the last big bad was a tangible threat out to “Suck your blood”.

Nancy is going through some growth.  She’s feeling guilty about Barb.  I didn’t think that sociopaths could develop emotions.  But, here we are – Another character that is out of character.  She gets drunk, breaks up with Steve, and gets taken home by Creeper.  The parents never wake even a little, which is out of character for Cara Buono who was up in everyone’s business last season.

I’m starting to think that this season is a transition for the creators who never envisioned this story continuing.  The first season ended like a great Beowolf Epic.  El sacrifices herself and the hope of love for her quest.  Hop goes all into redeem himself as a fallen knight for redemption.  This season, in contrast, falls flat because it doesn’t know where to go.  The monster is dead and this new one lacks suspense because he’s not even corporeal.  The Duffer Brothers might be using this season as transition to figure out a new compelling narrative- at least to think so makes me Halfway Happy.

Happy Halloween!

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Horror on the Lens: Night of the Living Dead (dir by George Romero)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Happy Halloween everyone!

Well, as another horrorthon draws to a close, it’s time for another Shattered Lens tradition!  Every Halloween, we share one of the greatest and most iconic horror films ever made.  For your Halloween enjoyment, here is George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead!

(Be sure to read Arleigh’s equally iconic review!)

ENJOY!

Halloween Havoc! Extra: Vincent Price Does “The Monster Mash”

Posted on by gary loggins

gary loggins's avatarcracked rear viewer

In what’s become an annual tradition here at Cracked Rear Viewer, it’s time for Halloween season’s theme song, “The Monster Mash” ! This time around, Vincent Price and his fiends, including fellow horror icon John Carradine , perform the hit from 1981’s cult movie THE MONSTER CLUB, featuring a scary soliloquy by Vincent on the monsters known as “humes”! Without further ado, here’s this year’s “Monster Mash”! And Happy Halloween, boys and ghouls!:

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AMV of the Day: This Is Halloween (Soul Eater)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It’s been a while since we’ve done an AMV of the Day here at the Shattered Lens.  This seems like the perfect day to rectify that!

Anime: Soul Eater

Song: Marilyn Manson — This Is Halloween

Creator: HagarenGao

Past AMVs of the Day

A Halloween Film Review: A Ghost Story (dir by David Lowery)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

To quote Taking Back Sunday:

“What’s it feel like to be a ghost?”

That’s the question that is asked in the hauntingly beautiful film, A Ghost Story.

How to describe the plot of A Ghost Story?  It’s not going to be easy because A Ghost Story is a film that defies easy description or categorization.  It’s power comes less from the specifics of the story and more from the mood that it creates.  A Ghost Story makes you think and it makes you feel and, to a certain extent, you’re just going to have to take my word on that.  This is one of those film that, to truly understand, you simply must see.

Casey Affleck plays C and Rooney Mara plays M.  They live in a small house, near Dallas.  They’re like any couple, really.  Sometimes, they appear to be in love.  Sometimes, they appear to be on the verge of breaking up and never seeing each other again.  Sometimes, they are happy.  Sometimes, they are sad.  The film starts with an almost random series of scenes, showing their life together.

Suddenly, we see a smashed car sitting in front of the house.

Just as abruptly, we’re in the hallway outside a sterile hospital room.  We can see that, inside the room,  M is staring down at a body on a slab.  The body has been covered with a sheet.  M leaves.  Slowly, the sheet-covered body sits up.  We watch as the sheet-covered ghost walks down the hallways of the hospital.  Briefly, it pauses to look at what appears to be a portal to … somewhere else.  The ghost does not enter the portal and the portal closes.

We spend the rest of the movie following that sheet-covered ghost as he wanders through our world.  No one living sees it and the ghost never says a word.  He watches as M mourns over his passing.  Time passes.  People enter and leave the house.  Life goes on but the ghost is stuck forever where he is, powerless to do anything other than occasionally break a dish, play a piano, or open a book.  Time passes.  The ghost sees the future, the past, and the present.  Why is the ghost still there?  Does the ghost know?  Is the ghost just waiting for someone who it has forgotten?

If I’m making A Ghost Story sound like a sad movie … well, it is.  There are moments of humor, largely coming from the fact that the ghost is literally a sheet with some eye holes.  For the most part, though, this film is a somber meditation on life, death, and what makes it all worth the trouble.  It’s a film that makes you wonder whether you would have entered that portal or if you too would have returned to your old house so that you silently watch the world go on without you.

From the stillness of the morgue to the view of a futuristic cityscape that the ghost can see but probably no longer appreciate, director David Lowery gives some truly beautiful and haunting images while telling this story.  (It’s not surprising to learn that the Dallas-based Lowery previously worked on Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color.)  A Ghost Story came out earlier this year and really didn’t get the attention that it deserved.  It’s a thought-provoking film and definitely one of the best of the year.

Music Video of the Day: Doing It All For My Baby by Huey Lewis & The News (1987, dir. ???)

Posted on by Valerie Troutman

Happy Halloween!

Early this year I started trying to figure out videos I could do for October. I didn’t think I was going to be able to come close to filling 31 days. But I did know that I could fill one day. And that’s today with the nearly 8 minute horror-themed video for Doing It All For My Baby by Huey Lewis & The News. Unfortunately, I am in no position to write about this the way I wanted to at the moment. I’m sorry.

Let me include the entry from Wikipedia that covers who to look for:

The music video for “Doing It All for My Baby” was a parody of monster movies and was over 7 minutes long. Huey appears as himself, the Dr. Frankenstein character, and the singing monster. Dracula is portrayed by bass player Mario Cippolina, who is shown placing his own disembodied head in a jar on a table (the camera then pans along the table to show the jarred heads of the rest of the News, echoing the buried-in-the-sand scene of their “If This Is It” video). Mario also appears as half of the two-headed creature with drummer Bill Gibson. Igor is played by keyboarder Sean Hopper. The Tower of Power horn section (Greg Adams, Lee Thornburg, Richard Elliot, Emilio Castillo and Stephen Kupka) is shown chained to the back wall playing their horns while Frankenstein/Huey sings into a steaming test tube. The video ends with Igor foolishly throwing a large switch, turning the singing monster back into Huey and the bride of Frankenstein’s monster screaming in horror.

I’ll rattle off some other things too look for as well:

  1. The Mystery Machine
  2. The News accidentally killing Huey.
  3. The News deciding that a dead Huey Lewis isn’t anything to cry over, and moving on.
  4. The Wizard Of Oz sock.
  5. The zombie that gets bonked on the head like at least one does in Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (1979)
  6. The sign: Mill Valley is a place Huey grew up. The bar on the cover of Sports is in Mill Valley. This year Huey went back there to perform. And the year before this video, 1986, they performed in Frankfurt.
  7. The bird.
  8. Notice that they somehow get Huey out from under the car with no explanation after two failed attempts to pull him out, and almost sawing off his leg.
  9. The joke about Dracula recognizing them because of course their bass player dressed as Dracula would recognize the band he’s a part of.
  10. The decapitation of The News, and the fact that more than just their heads being cut clean off must have happened judging by the state of their faces.
  11. Doc Brown as Dr. Frankenstein.
  12. The horn section from Tower Of Power chained to the wall.
  13. Don’t try to be Jimi Hendrix if you wear dentures.
  14. There are easier ways to plug in an electric guitar than an electric chair.
  15. Finally, the reference to the “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder” episode of The Twilight Zone when Bride Of Frankenstein screams at the sight of Huey Lewis as himself.

Enjoy!

Halloween On Amazon Prime 2017 : “The Grinn”

Posted on by Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)

Ryan C. (fourcolorapocalypse)'s avatarTrash Film Guru

For the final entry in our look at some of the lesser-seen (and even lesser-budgeted) flicks available for your Halloween viewing pleasure via Amazon Prime’s streaming service, we come to a curious, and often fascinating, little number called The Grinn, which was filmed earlier this year in Pacific Grove, California for (at least as IMDB would have it) the king’s ransom of precisely $300.

And, honestly, in may ways it shows : the sound quality can be uneven, some of the camera angles are a bit suspect, and the script is obviously an amateur effort with some real pacing problems — but here’s the kicker : it’s both inventive and surprising enough that you’ll likely be more than willing to overlook its production and plotting flaws.

And speaking of  the plot, here’s a brief, reasonably-“spoiler”-free rundown : A guy named Vance (played by John Carroll) wakes up with no…

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